Blood Ties Read online

‘Right,’ Jim confirmed. ‘Group of them out, one just passed their test. Wet roads and driving too fast, I suppose, and . . . well. You can guess the rest.’

  ‘There are some difficult roads round here,’ Alec agreed.

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t nowhere here,’ Jim told them. ‘I don’t recall where it was, but it was somewhere else. Visiting, she was. A relative, I suppose. The wife came from up north somewhere, I do believe.’

  ‘Sad,’ Bethan said. ‘He never really got over any of it. Then someone gave him that metal detector thing and it seemed as though he spent all his time digging up the fields after that.’

  ‘Susan said he had a bee in his bonnet about a treasure,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Oh, he’s not the only one. There’s rumours a plenty about landowners who buried their goods rather than let the crown get a hold of it or that Jeffries. An evil bastard, that one. Didn’t care if you were innocent or not, so long as you could pay him off. Thousands of pounds people paid, just to avoid the gallows or worse.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Alec was at a loss.

  ‘Judge Jeffries?’ Naomi said.

  ‘That’ll be the one. People round here have long memories. Folk would be queuing up to dance on his grave if they could get near it. Hundreds he killed, and the king, such as he was, just let him have free rein.’

  ‘And Eddy really took the stories seriously,’ Alec mused. ‘I saw him at The Lamb, all his maps and such. Did he actually find anything?’

  ‘Oh, the usual stuff they find round here.’ Jim was dismissive. ‘Musket balls, harness fittings, the odd button. I don’t know of anyone that found much more and they’ve been at it long enough, the detectorists and the archaeologists, and the fields round here are ploughed often enough you’d expect anything there was to find to have made its way to the surface by now.’

  ‘Oh there’s still copses and water meadows,’ Bethan said. ‘And wells and graveyards. That’s what I’d choose. A graveyard. No one bothers much once a body’s planted. I reckon there’s some mileage in the stories, but I don’t see the likes of poor Eddy getting lucky. Some people just don’t find the luck, do they, and it strikes me Eddy was one of them.’

  The Lamb was closed that night as a mark of respect and also because Susan had been up all night with ambulance and police and then neighbours who had come to investigate the sirens and lights. She had returned home late morning, called all her staff to explain and assured them they would still be paid, thinking – as she put the phone down on the last of them – that it was a promise she could ill afford. She had then gone to bed, not expecting to sleep, but had woken at six that evening, with no memory of falling asleep or of dreams that may have come.

  She called the officer, who had attended Eddy’s house the night before, on his mobile, knowing he would have gone off duty long since.

  ‘Looks like a simple accident,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry. I understand you were a good friend?’

  ‘I’d known Eddy just about all my life. No,’ she added in response to his enquiry. ‘I don’t know of any family. I have a vague idea his late wife had a brother. Yes, I’ll take a look and let you know if I can trace anyone.’

  She sat staring at the phone for several minutes after ringing off, reflecting that she had looked after Eddy in life and had always had this vague inkling that she’d be the one sorting out his affairs after death. She’d not expected it to be so soon, though, or so dramatic.

  Susan glanced around the tiny flat that had been her home since the divorce and division of spoils a couple of years before. She’d chosen to sink everything into getting a place of her own and, though it was tiny and cramped, she had never regretted the decision. She wasn’t even sure if Eddy actually owned his house. Didn’t really know about other family of his, either; Eddy didn’t like to talk about the past. Not the recent past, anyway; he was fine with anything a couple of hundred years or so distant, but more recent events were off the list so far as conversation went.

  Sighing, she wandered through to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, dunking the bag in a mug and pouring boiling water on top. Eddy always used a proper pot. He had little ones for when he was alone and large ones for company, a whole array of them lined up on a shelf in the kitchen with a weird and wonderful assortment of mugs hanging on hooks beneath.

  Susan splashed milk into her own rather plain mug and then leaned back against the counter, tea clasped between her hands for as long as she could bear the heat. She blew on the surface of the still-scalding liquid and took stock of her own little kitchen, deciding that whoever the next of kin turned out to be, she’d make a point of rehoming Eddy’s teapots and mugs. She could visualize them all, each having its own place in the map of Eddy’s world. There were china mugs that an elderly lady had given to him. A souvenir from Scarborough. One that was dark green and had a toad sitting at the bottom, ready to startle the unwary drinker. A large, pink striped vessel that Eddy awarded to anyone he wasn’t really sure about. A sure sign that he had a stranger or a not yet proven friend sitting in his kitchen was that they were drinking from the pink striped mug. It had once served the same purpose, both functional and symbolic, in her mother’s kitchen, and Susan found she could not recall the exact route of its migration to Eddy’s.

  Well, they would all be brought back to hers, have pride of place hanging beneath a shelf she didn’t yet possess but which she would go out and buy first thing in the morning.

  Abruptly, Susan set down her own as yet untouched tea, thumping the mug on to the counter hard enough that the contents slopped over the side. Suddenly she was crying. Hard, retching sobbing tears such as she could not remember shedding since her own parents had died, also far too early, far too abruptly five years before.

  There was no justice, no fairness in life and certainly none in death.

  When Eddy was a much younger man he’d had a brother. They had never been close, Guy being the flamboyant one who stole hearts and got the attention while Eddy waited for the fallout to happen – and sometimes benefited when Guy’s conquests rebounded.

  By his mid thirties, though, Eddy had long since stopped waiting for bouncing lovers; he’d found one of his own and married her and they were desperately happy. One day Martha had confirmed that, at last, she was pregnant, and Eddy thought nothing could ruin the way he felt.

  Guy, of course, had other ideas. It wasn’t, Eddy thought at the time, that Guy deliberately upset even the best of moments deliberately. He was far too self-centred, and to assume that he meant to hurt people was actually overestimating his capacity to take account of feelings. When Amy Clark came to Eddy and confessed that she was pregnant and that Guy was probably the father, Eddy knew that the chances of his brother stepping up to take responsibility were so minimal as to be non-existent.

  Worse, Amy was engaged, to a man she loved and who loved her. Guy was a mere fling born of sudden panic that this really was it, her days of being free and single were definitely numbered.

  And, besides, Eddy knew how persuasive Guy could be. He saw no reason why decent people should suffer. Guy could never have been described as decent.

  ‘What do you do?’ Eddy said to her. ‘Oh, that’s simple, Amy. You get married a bit sooner than you planned. You tell Dan you’ve fallen pregnant and let him think it’s his. For all you know it is. He’ll love it and he’ll put any doubts aside.’

  ‘I can’t lie to him.’

  ‘You can, you must, you will. After a while the lie will become the truth.’

  ‘But what about Guy?’

  ‘Guy need never know. Guy won’t bother you again, I promise you that.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell Martha, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell Martha, but I will do; she’d give you the same advice I am. Guy won’t bother you, I promise.’

  And Guy never did.

  Seven months later a baby girl was born and Eddy’s child with Martha arrived shortly after that. Amy and Dan named their baby Susan, a
nd Martha and Eddy called their daughter Karen, and Eddy made it his business to always look out for his brother’s child until the time came when their roles reversed and Susan became the one to take care of him.

  SEVEN

  One lazy day had been enough. In fact, they hadn’t quite managed even that. Somehow the news of Eddy’s death had darkened the mood. Naomi and Alec had returned to their room after breakfast and had, indeed, dozed for a while, watched the assortment of antique and house renovation based programmes on morning television and grown truly restless around lunchtime.

  Napoleon in tow, they had driven to Somerton in search of lunch and more antique shops and spent the afternoon wandering the pretty little market town, snooping in galleries but without the impulse to buy, and then, for no better reason than that they had not yet stopped there, they decamped to Bridgewater for their evening meal, Bethan having warned them that The Lamb would be closed.

  ‘This was where it all ended,’ Alec said as they sat waiting for their meal in The Wharf.

  ‘Where all what ended? Oh, you’re in Eddy land.’

  Alec laughed. ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘So?’ Naomi waited. She was aware that Eddy had been on Alec’s mind all day.

  ‘It took a bit of time for the King to get his act together and his army mobilized, but when he did they pushed Monmouth’s troops back hard and they retreated here. I think it was July the third, or thereabouts, when Monmouth got here, expecting there’d be reinforcements waiting for him, but Churchill had attacked from the south and cut them off. So, Monmouth and his crew were alone and pretty much cornered.’

  ‘What sort of numbers are we talking about here?’

  ‘Between three and four thousand, I think.’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I just skim read the leaflets back at the cottage. You know, we should go and walk the battlefield tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to be better and Napoleon could do with a good long hike.’

  ‘Suits me.’ She reached out cautiously for her wine glass.

  ‘Left a bit,’ Alec said.

  ‘OK, so what’s really getting to you? It’s sad about the old guy, but he slipped and fell down the stairs, Alec. Nothing sinister, so switch the policeman head off. You hardly knew him, anyway.’

  ‘True, but that’s never stopped me, has it? Not stopped either of us really. We spent our professional lives getting involved in the problems of people we didn’t know or had hardly met.’

  ‘True, but—’

  ‘Oh, you’re right. I suppose I was just hoping that I could get a break from all the dark and dismal, you know? But it seems to be following on behind like some—’

  ‘Accident,’ Naomi reinforced gently. ‘It was an accident. They can happen anywhere. You are not attracting bad things. Alec, you’ve been really happy and relaxed these past few days. Don’t let this spoil it. It’s sad, but it’s life.’

  ‘Death in Eddy’s case. No, I know. I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m letting everything get to me lately.’

  ‘It happens, we both know that.’

  ‘Which one of you is the beef Wellington?’ the waitress asked.

  Alec confessed that it was him, the plates were set down, and the waitress was assured that there was nothing more they required and that they would, indeed, enjoy their meal.

  Naomi felt for the cutlery. ‘Careful,’ she said. ‘Plates are red hot. So, tomorrow we do the Battlefield Walk and we see if we can find out more about this uprising that Eddy was so stuck on. There’s bound to be books for sale and stuff.’ She grimaced. ‘Doubt there’ll be anything audio available so you’ll have to do the reading. Now, eat and relax and after we’ve had the day out tomorrow you can have a talk to Susan, put your policeman head back on and see if there’s anything more than a frayed carpet to investigate. Deal?’

  She could hear the smile in his voice as he told her, ‘Deal, then. God, it’s not only the plates that are hot. Good though. I wonder if they do lunches here?’

  Beneath the table Napoleon’s tail thumped a contented beat, and Naomi tried to convince herself that for the rest of their holiday they could fall back into the pleasant rhythm of recent days, but in her heart of hearts she knew that opportunity had passed and gone.

  Susan had been to Eddy’s house many times at night, but always he had been there. The lights had been on, the fires lit, the atmosphere brightly melancholic, as Eddy himself had always been, his words cheerful but that sense of all-pervading sadness lurking just behind the eyes.

  She let herself in; she had kept the key from the night before, then hesitated before switching on the light, almost afraid that she would see again the crumpled body of her friend at the foot of the stairs.

  The hall light seemed harsh this evening, the bare bulb – Eddy was not a fan of shades on account of the fact they blocked out half the brightness – stark and ugly. Slowly, Susan made her way through the house, touching nothing, feeling oddly like an intruder. She’d come with the intention of starting the search for any family Eddy might have had. People to take over the funeral arrangements, to inherit, she supposed, to continue Eddy’s story now that the old man was gone. Instead, she just wandered, room to room, recalling, as she looked out through the kitchen window, hot summer evenings sitting in the garden with a beer. Christmases when she had helped him deck out the tree with all the little ornaments he and his wife had bought and the paper angels his little girl had made so long ago that the glitter had flaked from their now crumpled wings. Long chats, sitting around the kitchen table, either just the two of them or, more often, with others from the metal detecting community. She’d never really thought about it before, but she realized now that Eddy had been at the heart of a large if disparate group, most of whom had converged on Eddy’s cottage at some time or another. If they all came to the as yet un-arranged funeral, she’d need to organize a sizeable buffet at The Lamb. Eddy might have lived alone, but he would certainly not go to his rest unmourned.

  Somehow, that made her feel better, but it also increased the sense of puzzlement that had begun to coalesce. Eddy was liked; loved, even. He was known by so many people from so many different branches of local and not so local society and yet no one from his wider family had ever visited him, to Susan’s knowledge. Not even when his wife had been alive and her family could have reasonably been expected to show up, even if Eddy’s had not. Now that she thought about it, Susan remembered her parents commenting on that very fact. When Eddy’s wife had died, the local church had been full to bursting, as had the crematorium. The wake had gone on for hours. When his child had been taken, the funeral party had been swelled by her friends from school, but at neither event could Susan recall there being family. It was as if Eddy and Martha and Karen, that little unit, had existed in glorious isolation.

  More because of the feeling that now she was here she should be doing something, she went back into the hall and took the red-bound phone book from beneath the telephone. A quick flick told her that the book contained numbers for his detectorist friends, the local doctor and optician, that sort of thing, but no family. She tucked it into her bag anyway, thinking it would help her to contact friends who would want to be at the funeral, then she turned off all the lights and let herself out, feeling even more deflated and confused than when she had arrived.

  From Roads to Ruin by E Thame:

  News of Henry Kirkwood’s arrest reached Catherine when she and Elmer stayed for the night at an inn just outside of Bristol. The disguise they had taken was that of a gentleman farmer and his wife, off to visit relatives. She rode pillion, respectably behind her husband, and a second saddle horse was used as a pack animal. Her maid, she told the innkeeper, had been taken ill, and they’d proceeded alone, the male servant who had attended her husband having returned with her to the farm.

  It was not a good story and not very convincing cover, but they paid their money and were given a bedroom for the night. I think we must assume that keepers of seventeenth century inns were as used to t
he Mr and Mrs Smiths of the world then as they are now – a sorry state for the genuine Smiths who are destined, one suspects, always to be viewed with a suspicious eye.

  Catherine’s letters in the Lorenz collection tell us that she heard the news that night. They had been travelling for just less than two days.

  ‘My hearte felt like lead,’ she writes. ‘Elmer tells me that the newes is bruited abroad that Henry Kirkwood and his household are now forfeited to the King for his parte in this treatchery. I wish to turn back but Elmer is a man of goode sense and I must be guided by him and by the wish of my father who sended me hence.’

  Why they eventually did turn back towards home we can only speculate. Perhaps she wanted to be as close to her father as possible once he was sentenced; perhaps the King’s lines were too tightly drawn for them to cross. We do know, from the Lorenz records, that by the end of July they were finally heading north after a long detour, which took them into Wiltshire and to the White Horse Vale. That they did head south and did hide the remainder of the Kirkwood hoard is not in question. Finds in Bakers Field point to the cache being in that area and it is significant that only items immediately identifiable as being from the Kirkwood estate or otherwise tied to the rebellion have been discovered. We have to assume that anything else of value went north with Catherine and Elmer.

  EIGHT

  The Lamb reopened the following night but the mood was subdued and quiet. No one sat in Eddy’s seat, and Alec was somehow unsurprised when one of his usual suppliers of beverages bought an extra pint as usual and set it on the table, as though in silent salute.

  ‘I heard,’ he told Susan. ‘We’re really sorry.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘He’s going to be missed.’

  Alec nodded, was going to turn away, having done his condolence duty and painfully aware that he was only a visitor here, among people who actually knew the old man, when Susan called him back.

  ‘Mind if I ask you something?’